We need to find a fairer way of providing Goods and Services to the rest of the people on Earth.Cryptocurrencies and/or Gold Standard of money....maybe the answer to fight hyperinflation caused by too much printing of paper/fiat currencies by Governments and Central Banks all over the World. (https://nomorefiatmoneyplease.blogspot.com)
Zurich Insurance seeking to replace CEO: Bilanz magazine
Zurich Insurance AG is seeking a replacement for Chief Executive Officer Martin Senn, according to Swiss business magazine Bilanz.
PHOTO: REUTERS
[ZURICH]Zurich Insurance AG is seeking a replacement for Chief Executive Officer Martin Senn, according to Swiss business magazine Bilanz.
Switzerland's biggest insurance company has hired the London executive search firm MWM Consulting to conduct the search, Bilanz reported Thursday on its website, without identifying its sources.
The magazine didn't give a reason for why the company is seeking a new CEO. Riccardo Moretto, a company spokesman, declined to comment.
The report comes one week after Zurich Insurance reported a 79 per cent decline in third-quarter earnings to US$207 million(S$293.7 million) from a year earlier. Group profit declined after the company booked US$275 million in losses from the mid-August explosions in the Chinese city of Tianjin and set aside US$367 million more in reserves to cover mainly North American auto and construction liabilities.
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Zurich in September abandoned its proposed bid for Britain's RSA Insurance Group Plc after forecasting losses at its general insurance business because of Tianjin and increased reserves for U.S. auto liabilities.
MWM Consulting is the same company that Credit Suisse Group AG used to recruit Tidjane Thiam for its top job earlier this year, Bilanz said.
The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, delivers a speech during the international conference on Islamic finance, in Kuwait City on Nov 11, 2015.
PHOTO: AFP
[KUWAIT CITY] The fast growing, Sharia-compliant Islamic finance industry has the potential to promote financial stability because of its risk-sharing and asset-backed features, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said Wednesday.
"Islamic finance has, in principle, the potential to promote financial stability because its risk-sharing feature reduces leverage and its financing is asset-backed and thus fully collateralized," Ms Lagarde told an Islamic finance conference in Kuwait.
Islamic banks also offer profit-sharing and loss-bearing accounts that can help mitigate losses and contagion in the event of banking sector distress, she said.
"This leads... to higher total loss-absorbing capital, one of the key objectives of the new global regulatory reform," Ms Lagarde told the one-day event organised by the IMF and Central Bank of Kuwait.
But she said that for the industry to unlock its full potential, it must expand its customer base, harmonise standards and improve regulatory frameworks.
Ms Lagarde later told a press conference the IMF will increase its involvement in the Islamic finance industry by providing more bilateral surveillance and analytical help.
The Islamic finance industry, which bans speculation and interest, still lacks effective regulatory and supervisory frameworks catering to its unique risks.
It also bans dealing in products with excessive uncertainty, gambling, short sales and financing prohibited activities considered harmful to society.
Ms Lagarde said Islamic assets have crossed the US$2 trillion mark and has the potential to grow much larger.
Around 40 million of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are clients of the Islamic finance industry, which has surged in popularity since its niche market days of the early 1970s.
Kuwait's Central Bank governor Mohammad al-Hashel said Islamic finance can offer a system based on strong principles and social justice.
"A system, which if implemented in its true spirit, will bolster growth, create jobs, reduce poverty and address inequality," Mr Hashel said.
He said the Islamic system channels credit into productive investments that are socially responsible and not in wasteful speculative activity.
The objective is to create a system that is "ethically right, socially just, financially stable and economically productive", Mr Hashel said.
Officials and experts, however, acknowledged that the industry still faces tough hurdles, mainly setting consistent regulations for all markets.
The Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank president, Ahmad Mohamed Ali, said he believes the main obstacle is the failure to create a mega Islamic bank and the lack of sufficient tools to manage liquidity effectively.
World Bank taps French economist for private-sector arm
Philippe Le Houerou, World Bank Vice-President for Europe and Central Asia, speaks during a press briefing on the economic status of Europe and Central Asia on Sept 23, 2011 in Washington, DC.
PHOTO: AFP
[WASHINGTON] The World Bank named Philippe Le Houerou, a French economist and former employee, to head its International Finance Corp private-sector lending arm on Wednesday.
Currently vice-president for policy and partnerships at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Mr Le Houerou will be the executive vice-president and chief executive of the IFC.
Last Friday World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced unexpectedly that current IFC chief Jin-Yong Cai, a Chinese banker, was stepping down at the end of the year.
The IFC lends to companies to support private-sector projects in developing countries, including factories, farms, infrastructure and clean energy.
"There's no doubt in my mind that IFC's work with the private sector is critically important to create jobs, to fight climate change, and to tackle the key global challenges of our times," Mr Le Houerou said in a statement.
Mr Le Houerou is returning to the World Bank, where his last role in a "long and successful career" there was as vice-president for the South Asia Region until 2014, the Bank said.
"Few professionals have his breadth of geographic experience and knowledge of regional markets," said Mr Kim in the statement.
It did not indicate when Mr Le Houerou would take the helm of the IFC.
In recent years, the IFC has been accused by activist groups of supporting development projects that have violated the rights of local populations.
While welcoming Mr Le Houerou's appointment, Oxfam International noted that though the IFC's social and environmental standards had been strengthened recently, "they're still being ignored with troubling frequency.
" "Le Houerou's success will ultimately be judged on whether or not he drives change forward and takes decisive actions needed to prevent the IFC's past failures from happening again," said Nicolas Mombrial, head of Oxfam's Washington office, in a statement.
Cameron announces £9b in UK-India deals during Modi visit
[LONDON] Prime Minister David Cameron said British and Indian companies will announce deals worth a total of £9.0 billion (S$19.4 billion) during his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi's visit to Britain.
Mr Cameron made the announcement at a joint press conference with Modi at Downing Street, saying that new rupee-denominated bonds would also allow Indian companies to issue debt in London.
"During this visit, British and Indian companies are announcing new collaborations together worth more than £9 billion," Cameron said.
"We want to forge a more ambitious, modern partnership," he added, noting that India has more investments in Britain than in the rest of the European Union combined.
Mr Cameron unveiled plans for £1.0 billion of rupee-denominated bonds to be traded in London, saying that he wanted Britain to become India's "number one partner" for raising finance.
Asked about an upcoming referendum on Britain's European Union membership, Modi said: "As far as India is concerned, if there is an entry point to the European Union, that is the UK".
[Moscow] Russia's economy shrank 4.1 per cent in the third quarter this year, official statistics showed on Thursday, as a recession caused by low oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine continued to take its toll.
The preliminary figures released by state agency Rosstat represent a slight improvement on government forecasts of a 4.3 per cent year-on-year fall but still show that Russia's economy is mired deep in trouble.
Russia's government estimates that the economy will shrink by around 3.9 per cent in 2015 before recovering slightly by 0.7 per cent in 2016.
The World Bank in September predicted the Russian economy would shrink by 3.8 per cent in 2015 in its baseline scenario, a far steeper decline than an earlier forecast of a 2.7-per cent contraction.
The downturn in 2015 could be as much as 4.3 per cent if oil prices continue to drop and average around US$50 a barrel over the year, the bank said.
The World Bank in September ditched its earlier forecast of a gentle recovery with 0.7 per cent growth in 2016. It now expects Russian economic output to decline 0.6 per cent next year, with a recovery only appearing in 2017 with growth of 1.5 per cent.
The poverty rate has climbed to 15.1 per cent, representing 21.7 million people, in what the World Bank called a "troubling rise" exacerbated by increasing food prices.
In some regions, more than 35 per cent of the population live in poverty, it said.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its meddling in Ukraine could cost Russia about nine percent of GDP in the medium-term.
Indonesia asks China to clarify South China Sea claims
Indonesia has asked China to clarify its claims over the South China Sea but has yet to receive a response, the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, a day after Indonesia's security chief said Jakarta could take Beijing to court over an island dispute.
PHOTO: REUTERS
[JAKARTA] Indonesia has asked China to clarify its claims over the South China Sea but has yet to receive a response, the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, a day after Indonesia's security chief said Jakarta could take Beijing to court over an island dispute.
Beijing's claim to almost the entire resource-rich sea is shown on Chinese maps with a nine-dash line that stretches deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also claim parts of the waterway.
Last year, the Indonesian armed forces chief accused China of including parts of the Indonesian-ruled Natuna islands within the nine-dash line.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo's administration departed from its usual low-profile role in the dispute on Wednesday when security chief Luhut Panjaitan said Jakarta could take China to an international court if dialogue over the islands failed. "The position of Indonesia is clear at this stage that we do not recognise the nine-dash line because it is not in line with ... international law," Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir told reporters. "We asked for clarification on what they mean and what they mean by the nine-dash line. That has not been clarified." Nasir could not say when the request through diplomatic channels was made to China.
Officially, China and Indonesia do not contest the sovereignty of the Natuna islands: both agree they are part of Indonesia's Riau province. Nor does Indonesia challenge Beijing's expansive claims in the South China Sea.
The Philippines has taken China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, a case Beijing refuses to recognise.
For years, China has insisted that disputes with rival claimants be handled bilaterally.
When asked if Indonesia could also take China to court, as Panjaitan had said, Nasir responded: "We cannot preempt things before we know how they evolve. But what is clear is that we are not a claimant state and we don't recognise the issue of the nine-dash line, which we have made clear to China." Regional leaders are expected to discuss the issue at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) later this month.
China's economy unlikely to have hard landing: ADB chief
[TOKYO] China's economy is unlikely to suffer a hard landing as Beijing has room to deploy fiscal and monetary stimulus if the world's second-largest economy slows further, Asian Development Bank President Takehiko Nakao said on Thursday.
ADB, the regional lender, expects Chinese growth to slow to 6.8 per cent this year from last year's 7.3 per cent, and to be 6.7 per cent in 2016.
Since last year, China has rolled out a raft of measures to avert a shaper slowdown, including fast-tracking infrastructure investment and cutting interest rates six times since November 2014. But such steps have been slow to take effect. "Even if GDP falls, there won't be a hard landing," Nakao, a former Japanese vice finance minister for international affairs, told a lecture. "There's room for fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate the economy if it slows further... I think they will act if necessary to maintain a certain rate of growth." Nakao said Chinese authorities would refrain from Keynesian economic policy, which could lead to more debt and excess investment, while Beijing tries to achieve harmonious growth led by private consumption and the service sector.
He also said he hoped ADB would cooperate with the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) through co-financing projects starting "next spring".
Japan and the United States have stayed out of the AIIB, which is seen as a rival to Japan-led ADB and the US-led World Bank. But Nakao said if the two countries cooperate with the China-led AIIB indirectly through ADB and the World Bank, it would serve the best interests of Japan.
Nakao said he hoped Myanmar's new government would continue with market-oriented economic reform, saying President Thein Sein has promoted stable growth.
